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Featured Poet: Catherine Cohen

I had to include three poems from this week's featured poet because they're meant to be torn through—read in a row, so they spike and then run together. That's how I consumed Catherine's whole collection, God I Feel Modern Tonight: in one sitting and smiling. Her speaker flits between ideas and suppositions with laughing nonchalance, but earnest emotion streaks through these poems like a star. Disappointment and tenderness, wild longing and genuine affection for being alive—these feelings collide and clamor to make themselves known. 
 

poem I wrote after I crummed (crum: to cry and cum at the same time)
By Catherine Cohen

my beaded bag & I are going to CityMD
because I'm convinced I'm dying again
everyone who works here looks like they run a casino
but I still believe them
this morning at 2 p.m. I got a cold brew
and felt like falling in love
boys love to run down stairs fast
men love to date powerful women for 3-8 weeks
I love when someone is "surprise married"
that's when someone tells me they're married
and I'm like but you're my age
and they're like yeah
and I'm like that's surprising to me...
 

road trip poem #12

By Catherine Cohen

sara says her art friends in philly
aren't happy and they aren't even close
I wonder if I should get a dishwasher
yesterday we drove through south dakota,
minnesota, wisconsin, we pulled over
right where james wright
saw those lonely horses
& I tell you I'd been thinking about his
hammock poem where he says
he wasted his life because we saw the sun
reflecting off that buffalo dung in yellowstone
which was overrated then amazing
how deep does the ground go by the way?
that night we had sex under the stars
and I peed in the wrong place after
do you think they will know it was me?
I do my best work 
when I'm hungover and mortified
no one ever got any good ideas from feeling perfect
 

road trip poem #17

By Catherine Cohen

I'm jealous of everyone
and wouldn't change a thing
every time we have sex I tell you
it's one for the record books
and you say something can't be special
if everything is. boys love drumming on stuff
boys love taking their shirt off with one hand
oh my god experience
whatever pleasure you can in this life 
for example I'm at mcdonald's right now

All three of these poems are from Catherine's new book, God I Feel Modern Tonight (see below). Also check out the aforementioned hammock poem. It's a very one year of isolation and I've done what? mood. 

In Conversation with the Poet
Photo of my copy of "God I Feel Modern Tonight" held in front of a plant. The cover shows an illustration of the author, Catherine Cohen. She's wearing a see-through green robe with fluffy trim and lacy black lingerie beneath. She's reclining on a pink couch and holding her phone above her head.
In addition to being a poet, Catherine Cohen is a stand-up comedian, singer, actress, writer of funny songs and host of the podcast, Seek Treatment. She's very good on Instagram and Twitter and has a her own weekly poetry newsletter, My Sexy Little Email.

Her book, God I Feel Modern Tonight: Poems from a Gal About Town, is available now ($16.56, Knopf). 
SF: You communicate through so many different media. How is poetry distinguished, for you, from these other genres? Question that has no real answer: what makes something a poem, to you?

CC: ooooo my god I love poems !!! I think something is a poem when it can’t be anything else. is that a dumb answer? if it is, pls don’t tell me I’m having a hard day because I drew a bath that was too hot and then overcompensated by making it too cold and now there is no hot water left actually. ugh a lukewarm bath is like a side-hug…it’s like, go all in baby!!!

SF: First of all, agreed. Poems are the long division remainder of writing. I know you’ve been writing poems for quite a while, but the pandemic seems to have been particularly conducive for you to focus on poetry. Why is poetry the right form for you in this moment?

CC: it’s all we have!! I can’t get on stage, I can’t get in a rehearsal room with a pianist to write songs, I can’t go to set (no one has hired me), so poetry feels like one of the only things I can control. it’s less daunting than writing a script (I famously can’t write from the POV of another) and feels very healing. it’s the perfect outlet for my online brain which can online process a few words at a time without growing bored to death.

SF: Practically speaking, how did this book come together? What was the drafting and editing process like for you?

CC: I sent basically all the poems I’d written over the last few years to my genius editor Deb Garrison and she sent me back a vintage-chic printed out manuscript with notes in RED PENCIL. sooo fab. once we figured which we def wanted to include, I made a few changes and then started writing pandemic-inspired poems to include at the end of the book. It all happened in real time. The last few poems in the book are “road trip poems” that I wrote in the car or at the campsite when my boyf and I drove cross-country this past August. I think we then settled on a final draft by the end of September. It was truly a very pleasurable process, very natural and from the GUT ! 

SF: Please talk to me about your poem titles. Some favorites include: "poem I wrote after I went to Tuscany to journal about my toxic guitar teacher," "poem I wrote after I looked at your jawline and it ruined my life" and "poem I wrote after you helped me assemble my new couch and then broke up with me on it." Are they all literally true? This is exactly the poem you wrote “after…” Or do you accumulate title ideas and use them when they feel like they fit a poem? 

CC: Almost everything in the book is true, though I switch out certain names of specific references to keep some identifiers my little secrets. The titles however I just tack on at the end—they often don’t connect directly to the poem and when I read them on stage I’ll occasionally switch titles around to see what might get the biggest laugh IRL. 

SF: What are your thoughts on punctuation? When is punctuation a good idea?

CC: you’ll know when it’s right ; ~ !

SF: Tell me a poem I should read.

CC: Snow by Louis MacNeice is a perfect poem

This interview was conducted via email in March 2021. 
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